Nov 16, 2010

The tendency of partisan primaries to produce candidates further to the right or left for the majority of the electorate is nothing new or unique to one or two states. As long as the candidates in general elections are determined in party primaries, party activists — who tend to be more liberal or conservative than the general population — will dominate the decision-making process. But if we let primary voters select candidates of either party (or no party at all) in one primary open to all, we would encourage more candidates to move to the center. That’s where party nominees typically try to position themselves after general elections, though those efforts often have little credibility, given their primary campaign rhetoric.

22 comments:

Survey research of registered independents debunks the popular idea that they are more "Moderate" than party members. Independent voters in strongly Democratic areas tend to be mostly just as far left as Democrats in that area. The same is true in reverse. People become independents because they just don't like the idea of joining an organization. That is different than not joining a major party because they disagree with both major parties. The vast majority of independents vote for major party nominees in general elections, in the typical election.

The original article doesn't state this clearly, but I believe it is advocating for "open primaries" as that phrase was considered to be defined before California's prop 14 stole it.

Prior to prop 14, "open primary" meant any voter, regardless of affiliation (or lack there of), was allowed to get a ballot for any party's primary, their choice. Each party's winner then proceeded to the general election.

I'm unsure of how much effect open primaries (by this definition) have on elections, but the article seems to think they would be of great help.

With prop 14 though, what used to be known as a "nonpartisan blanket primary" or a "jungle primary" started to be referred to as an "open primary". That is, all candidates are on a single ballot, and the top two vote-takers go to the general.

I don't think this new definition is what the article wanted to refer to (esp. since it never mentions Louisiana, California, or Washington) and am confident in saying that jungle primaries have a small, but net-negative, effect on moderation.

This sort of deal works better if an alternative to first (two) past the post is used to determine the finalists.

I wrote up an approach to this that had 3 candidates determined in the "open" primary stage and then IRV used in the general election. However, It'd be fine with AV as well. Whichever non-first-past-the-post election rule encounters less resistance or gets more popular support...

I'd also recommend only using "top two primary" for state-wide elections, since that would make the threat of both finalists being from the same party "theoretical". It would be similar to the backgammon triple gain rule in Backgammon, which gives the winner 3-times the points for a match if (s)he bears off all of their checkers before their opponent is able to bear off any AND their opponent still has checkers in their opponents home board or on the bar. This is a rule that never comes into play, but it does affect player's strategy. If a "top two primary" were used for state-wide elections, where there is not a great disparity in the percents of partisan voters, then the possibility that one of them could corner the general election ballot would motivate both to get their voters to turn out to the primaries.

For more local elections, where de facto segregation favors one major party, it'd be better to have three candidates in the general election.dlw

Top two is an abomination, we need non-D/R-oids on the general election ballot that most people pay attention to, and party labels so smaller parties that don't have money for mass advertising can at least get a bit of labeling.

I don't think most election rules are necessarily "abominations". It's a matter of context and state-wide elections are very capital-intensive in ways that third parties are always going to have a hard time to compete with. If they voted strategically together then they could influence the D/R candidates and move the political center on issues of import to them. And then they could focus their limited time and energy on contesting more local elections where they are more likely to win seats.

It's not that there aren't benefits to third party's having candidates in bigger elections, it's whether they'd have benefited more from focusing the bulk of their time/energy on more local winnable elections and then voting strategically together in less local elections.

We'll see..., you don't need to have a candidate on the ballot to make a difference in an election.

It struck me as wishful thinking that failed to consider the better consequences from spending the same amount of time and energy on winnable elections.

And I doubt that third parties would do a lot better if we used IRV or Approval Voting or what-not for bigger elections. The reason is that we humans do act a good deal like sheep a lot of the time and that makes us easier to lead astray. This paraphrase of an under-appreciated psycho-social practitioner from two thousand years ago is consistent with much of the research of behavioral models of voter behavior.

This is why I think many "independent voters" aren't very independent and why third parties would be smart to focus on more local winnable elections where meaningful personal relationships are more likely to make a difference for third parties.dlw

I guess then my viewpoint would be that the bigger problem we face is how outsiders like us have become beholden to wishful thinking of capturing the biggest offices more so than simply doing our part to move the center of our country's politics.

If we make state legislative elections competitive then their status will rise in the public's eyes and so will that of third parties that spice up our democracy.

It's not a matter of wishful thinking or electability. Bigger races are for publicity since they get covered more, being on everyone's ballot since we can't cover every local district or most of them, getting interviews and debates, and a chance to address issues that are of interest to most people that local offices don't deal with.

In many cases ballot access also depends on having a statewide and/or presidential candidate.

It seems to me though that the game is still stacked in terms of good publicity for third parties... and that it'd be better to focus on ending the need to have a statewide or presidential candidate to get ballot access.

And I'm reckoning that LT party candidates for local/state elections could easily use some of their platforms to address nat'l or statewide issues, since they'd be a representative of a party voting strategically in less local elections. This would be part of how we'd elevate the perceived import of more local elections...

We have no pull to change those ballot access laws and we'll have even less under top two. Many people care about foreign policy and and national issues and want to make their views on that known to build their parties even if they can't get elected. Many people do not pay attention to local candidates or issues. Top two is a terrible idea, we need to fight it with everything we have.

But I think you'd have more pull on that sort of stuff if you prioritized your activism. And part of the idea is to get people to start realizing how important local and state politics are, since our preoccupation with nat'l and int'l politics (which I myself shared in the past) is a product of how our current system reinforces itself.

If folks are anti-war then it is worth noting that the political-economy of war is very simple: the few benefit at the expense of the many and so anything that bolsters popular democracy will deter war. This is part of how LTs would check the US's imperialistic tendencies as it checks the influence of $peech on both parties by the Military-Industrial-Congressional complex.

If we focus on what they want us to focus on and try to fight their battles then we're going to lose. With a modified form of Top Two, it would guarantee that "moderate" (the specific meaning of that label would change) leaders within one of the two major parties would be on the final ballot for a competitive election, in which strategically voting LTs would determine which one gets elected.